Watching the Colts exit the NFL playoffs Sunday got me to thinking about baseball Hall of Fame voting. Indianapolis' Mike Vanderjagt did not miss a kick all season, and yet he could do nothing to prevent the Colts from losing to New England. It was an Eric Gagne kind of season, except Gagne's Dodgers didn't reach the playoffs at all, even with the closer going 55 for 55 in save situations.

Closers are like placekickers: they need the stars to bring the game to them. And only then can the truly great ones have even a chance to make a difference. Look at how personnel people in the respective sports value players at those positions. The churn rate is extremely high, even for those who are exceptional (see Lee Smith, Rich Gossage, Jeff Reardon, Randy Myers, Morten Andersen, Gary Anderson, et al). And closers and placekickers are paid less than those of like stature at the "traditional'' positions. Indeed, most closers fall into the job because they failed in the tougher, more valued role of starting pitcher.

There is one kicker in the NFL Hall of Fame: Jan Stenerud. There are three closers in the baseball Hall of Fame: Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers and Dennis Eckersley. That sounds about right to me. These guys are specialists and as such deserve a more critical eye when weighing their careers.

Close call Player G Opp. Saves BS PCT Percival 527 328 283 45 .863 Rivera 512 327 283 44 .865

I've heard the wailings for Bruce Sutter, about how he was "unhittable'' because of his split-finger fastball. (Gossage, who faced the deeper AL lineups most of his career, was actually tougher to hit than Sutter, .228 to .230.) Relief pitchers should be difficult to hit because they pitch in short spells, usually without seeing the same batter twice. Here's a look at how all relievers compared to all starting pitchers last year.

I don't think anyone would argue that relievers as a group are better than starters. It's just that their job is easier due to their limited exposure.

Back to Sutter, who, in light of current closers, has been portrayed as a workhorse. Sutter threw fewer big-league innings than Jeff Suppan. His career as a specialist was too brief. He had only seven seasons in which he saved 20 games with an ERA better than the league average.

Even Gossage, though he pitched 22 seasons, had only nine such years as a top closer (20 saves, ERA better than league average). Only once did he ever finish in the top four in Cy Young balloting -- one third-place finish. Did he suffer from a bias against relievers? Absolutely. That bias, however, is one with merit.

What, then, will it take to get another closer in the Hall of Fame? John Smoltz could take Eckersley's route with the combined portfolio of starting and relieving. But what about pure closers? I started thinking about Mariano Rivera and Troy Percival as examples. After making their first appearance in 2004, Rivera and Percival will both have reached the Hall of Fame's minimum requirement for eligibility with 10 seasons played. (The Hall does not use service time; one game equals one season.)

Rivera and Percival are more alike than you might think. They were born three months apart in 1969. They made their big-league debuts one month apart in 1995. Rivera is a five-time All-Star. Percival is a four-time All-Star. They are the only relievers in the past seven years to close a World Series clincher. Their basic statistical profile is amazingly close.

As we know, the save stat cannot be trusted too much to define a closer. But, of course, Rivera has a much better ERA (2.49 to Percival's still excellent 3.00), has walked far fewer hitters (177 to 234), given up far fewer home runs (37 to 56), and thrown more than 20 percent more innings (649.2 to 537).

Are Percival and Rivera Hall of Famers? It's too soon to say with any certainty. We're talking about two specialists who are only now reaching the absolute minimum eligibility requirement -- with no comps as far as how little they have actually pitched.

For instance, only two Hall of Famers did not surpass 2,000 innings: Dizzy Dean (1,967) and Fingers (1,701). At their current rates, Rivera would have to pitch until he's 50 to match Fingers' record-low workload and Percival would have to keep going until he's 55 to hit the Cooperstown low-water mark. Just to get to 1,000 innings, Rivera would have pitch five more years, at which point he'd be 39.

Of course, Rivera has something else in his favor. He has been knighted as The Greatest Postseason Reliever in History. Rivera has thrown 96 postseason innings (15 percent of his career regular-season total) and allowed only eight earned runs, a 0.75 ERA. Those numbers alone, like Eckersley's solid years as a starter, could put Rivera over the top when voters consider his career.

Rivera is the specialist's specialist. Someday he might break through the bias writers have against relievers, a bias that deserves to be in place. And on Feb. 1, if the Patriots should win another Super Bowl on a last-second kick, maybe Adam Vinatieri will become known as the Mariano Rivera of placekickers.

The Yankees' strike force

Thanks to their well-deserved reputation for having an ever-expanding budget, the Yankees send shudders through other teams at this time of year. They can never be ruled out of the bidding on players. So when word leaked to clubs last week that one team had offered Greg Maddux a three-year, $30-million deal with the option to leave after the first year, one executive decided, "It's got to be the Yankees. He gets the money but he also gets the chance to opt out if New York doesn't suit him.''

The Yankees, however, have not acknowledged any interest in Maddux, though top advisor Gene Michael has coveted the four-time Cy Young Award winner for years and nearly nabbed him in 1992. Sources close to the right-hander have long held that his preference is to remain in the National League, but the one AL team that intrigues him is the Yankees

The Yankees may not need Maddux (as if they needed Kenny Lofton, right?), but they do need another solid starting pitcher as an insurance policy. Does anybody believe that Kevin Brown, Jose Contreras and Jon Lieber will make all their starts? Without Jeff Weaver or David Wells around, the Yankees have only Jorge DePaula (10-11 at Columbus last year) as a ready replacement. They are considering signing John Burkett, Orlando Hernandez or Scott Erickson.

Even without Maddux, and despite losing seven pitchers who combined to throw more than 900 innings last year, the Yankees remain one of the best strike-throwing staffs in baseball. First, here's a look at the teams with the best and worst differences between walks taken and walks given:

Best
1. Yankees +309
2. Red Sox +132
3. Mariners +120
4. Phillies +115
5. Twins +110

Worst
1. Devil Rays -219
2. Cubs -125
3. Dodgers -119
4. Rangers -115
5. Tigers -114

The Yankees were far ahead of the pack in the free-baserunner advantage. That should continue in 2004. Their five "new'' additions (Lieber, Brown, Javier Vazquez, Paul Quantrill and Tom Gordon) averaged 2.1 walks per nine innings in their last season -- the same rate as the departed seven (Roger Clemens, Wells, Andy Pettitte, Weaver, Jeff Nelson, Chris Hammond and Antonio Osuna).

No team in baseball has more established strike-throwers than the Yankees. Of the 14 pitchers currently on active rosters with the lowest rate of walks per nine innings (minimum 1,000 innings), five of them wear pinstripes: Lieber (2), Mussina (6), Vazquez (12), Quantrill (13) and Brown (14). Maddux (4) would fit right in. Of course, the strikes those pitchers throw often result in grounders, and the Yankees' defense is an entirely different story.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.